Great Christmas Lights Map - Start the Season off right!

We are excited to see the 2008 Bay Area CA Christmas Lights map on Mapicurious.com. Great details and shots for each one of these electric tributes. Thanks to user Regenegade for creating this map.

You have to check it out:

2008 Bay Area CA Christmas Lights

This information will be searchable on the mobile and Dash Mapicuriosities applications later today.

If you have a map idea, it is easy to register and create Christmas lights maps or any other map - and download them to your GPS.

Thanks,

Maps

Mapicurious becomes social with Google Friend Connect

We make maps for people at Mapicurious.com.

These people can view the map on Mapicurious, can download the points to their own GPS, view the points on their Dash GPS, access the points on your mobile phone, view the map in Google Earth, explore zoomable panoramas from Gigapan....and now interact with other Mapicurious users with Google Friend Connect.

Hope you enjoy the experience.

Thanks,

Maps

Want to get a GPS for the Holidays? Mapicurious Recommends...

We are starting to answer some questions about what GPS to purchase this Holiday season. Our disclosure here is that we have received zero devices for free, zero money from any manufacturer, and we have personally used every device type listed.

1. Garmin - These are the best devices for US drivers all around. Easy to use, very intuitive, and a breeze for senior drivers. Updates are free. Traffic is available but will not be as good as Dash below.

2. Dash - Recently the Dash company announced that they no longer will produce the hardware, but license the software. Buy this for real time traffic flows and two way location based applications (Yes - some of these are Mapicurious produced!). You should be able to pick up the old hardware at Fry's and Amazon until sold out.

3. Magellan - Recently the quality of these have decreased, and customer service is impossible if you do run into problems. Some first time GPS users are satisfied with Magellans on US roads.

4. TomTom - If you are a US driver avoid these devices. Road announcements are poor, directions are poorly timed, and menus too confusing. We are willing to sell you a used top-end one if you must have one from this manufacturer.

How to use this list:

1. If it is not on this list, keep your money in your pocket.

2. If you are at a store (let's say Best Buy or RadioShack - sorry Circuit City - you closed all of your stores around us.) and looking at a $199 device from each of the above manufacturers, choose in the order of this list.

3. Please send us your feedback or issues with any of the manufacturers.

Thanks,

Maps

Step 2: Add your Lat Lng to Your Register Receipts

The other day I found a receipt from a trip to Tokyo, Japan. If you have ever been to Tokyo before (especially if you do not speak the language) you know how confusing it can be to find locations.

Well this merchant placed their location's coordinates right on the receipt, where we would normally find the telephone number. What a great idea!

Here's why:

1. As a customer, I can program these coordinates into my mobile phone or GPS device and always have your exact location handy without the trouble of geocoding.

2. As a business traveler, I can reconstruct where I spent my expense account dollars. Which might reveal what I purchased when my memory is fuzzy.

3. As a tourist, I can easily map what I visited.

4. Even as a foreigner who cannot speak or read Japanese, I could tell you where I bought this really cool electronic gadget.

So on any available line on your receipt, program your cash register to output your latitude and longitude along with the important information from Step 1.

Thanks,

Maps

Step 1: Prepare your locations' listing data

At the very least a listing should include common locative information. Here is your checklist:

1. The latitude and longitude of your store's front door location. Why the front door? Many times your address might be 1500 Main Street Suite 221, and the shopping center is a small city, the parking lot is huge, and your storefront is a needle-in-the-haystack.

It is one thing to be on the property, and another to be inside your location.

Locative technologies are supposed to save you time, and knowing how to get within 10 feet of your front door is key. Your next customer could be using his/her cell phone to pinpoint your location.

2. Local phone number - If you forget the address (assuming you already supplied the latitude and longitude) a phone number is all you need. Remember - most of your customers carry a cell phone.

3. Your street address - You can try this on any PND - type in your store address, and let the PND navigate you to your store. You might be surprised to find out the address alone could be off a significant distance.

An address can be converted to coordinates by "geocoding", however this is an estimate of your location only. Double check the address by plotting your address with Google Earth.

4. Your website URL - Hopefully you have some ways to engage your customers here, but since Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) are more connected (think cell phones) this is critical information about your business that might not be able to list on the GPS.

Supply a mobile optimized site, not your multimedia heavy regular dotcom site.

5. Description - Break down your location into discreet bites of information:
- 1 sentence for what you do (sell new and used sports equipment cheap)
- 1 for particulars on your location (far left of Park Lane Shopping Center)
- best days and time to shop (open M-F 9a-5p, closed the entire month of December, etc)

This should be enough for a good listing. Did we forget anything?

Is your business under-represented?

Do you own a personal navigation device or PND (Think Garmin, Magellan, Mio, TomTom, or your gps mobile phone)?

Conduct a point of interest search and notice Starbucks, Subways, and McDonalds are easy to find. How about your own business, where is it listed?

Where it ranks on the list may determine whether a PND guided user finds Subway over your location.


Typically GPS hardware/software manufacturers license these business based POIs from NAVTEQ, TeleAtlas, or the like. These providers are always looking for unique, local results - and it is much easier to collect POIs 1000 at a time. Some of you may have working SEO programs to help web searchers find you, but what about strategies to help people find you in the real world using PNDs?

If you have 1000+ locations I doubt you are reading this blog. Companies like NAVTEQ, TeleAtlas, and MapQuest have probably already reached out to you. So as a smaller operator how do you make your business stand out in the searchable list on a PND?

We at Mapicurious want to give you ideas for marketing your business via personal navigation device in a multi-part series.

For starters let us introduce a definition:

Personal Navigation Device (PND) - Software and hardware to receive a location and guide the user between two points in the physical world. You know these as Garmins, Magellans, Dashes, Mios, and Navigons. You should know that Nokias, iPhones, and Blackberrys fall into this category as well.

It is very possible that the customer in your store now has one of these.

Second, let's prepare a few answers to critical questions making your business stand out?

1. How many times have you felt your location is a disadvantage compared to your customers?

2. Do customers mention they had difficulty finding a location of yours?

3. How much is it worth if a customer finds your location on their PND with an attractive amount of information, and bypass your competitors to visit?

4. Ask your friends and customers, what brand of PND they have.

We'll use these answers in the next installment.

Thanks,

Maps

Atlanta Gas Crisis Line Spotter

Exclusively on the Dash GPS - Drive around and submit places you see a line for gas. A line means that station has the valuable resource.

View the results on the map.

A Dash user simply adds the application via their account at my.dash.net, clicks the application button when near a gas station, adds the station name (you can even add price), and submits to Mapicurious.

Looking for other ideas to alleviate the panic of looking for gas. My sipper is OK for the moment.

Thanks,

Maps